Effort vs Value—A Lesson I Learned the Hard Way

3 minute read

The First Story: Burnt Fingers, Blurred Vision, and a Big Realization

It was 2016. I was in my final year of undergrad. Curly hair, a tired soul, and a body running on broken sleep cycles. For almost a year, I had been grinding through a project funded by IEEE PES — a 1kW pure sine wave inverter.

Finally, the system worked. It converted 48V DC to 220V AC like a charm. This was my first hands-on power electronics project. Ironically, I hadn’t even taken the power electronics course — due to my major-minor track. But I dove deep: gate driver design, ferrite-core transformer calculations, PCB layout for noise reduction, sourcing old capacitors from scrapped equipment… It was all self-taught, reading books, datasheets and burning so many PCB boards. I have another funny story of burning PCB board. It is story for another day.

The amount I learned was insane.

But here’s where the story takes a turn.

At that time, I was chair of the IEEE student branch and had just organized a workshop. The instructor, Prof. X, went into his room.

I climbed to the fourth floor of the academic building and entered his room.

“Sir, I’ve completed a 1kW inverter from scratch. Do you think it’s publishable?”

He looked at me and asked, “What’s new in it? What problem does it solve?”

I hesitated. “We worked really hard… it was tough to build…”

He interrupted, calm but firm: “See!, hard work is valuable — for you. But in research, effort doesn’t define impact. Someone else might work one hour and come up with something truly groundbreaking. The question is: what new value does your work bring to the field?”

I leaned on the wall. Silently. Frustrated, but also humbled.

That moment changed how I think about value.

The Second Story: The $10,000 Feature

A few years later, I heard a story from the software world. A company had just launched a shiny new product.

An engineer went to demo it to a client. The client asked, “Can I export the data to Excel?”

“Sure, give me 10 minutes,” the engineer said, smiling. He coded it on the spot.

He returned to the office and told the CEO proudly, “I added an export feature. It only took 10 minutes.”

The CEO paused, then replied, “That’s not the point. That feature solves a real customer problem. It’s valuable. We could’ve charged $10,000 for it.”

Boom.

That hit me like lightning. Once again — value is not about how hard something is to build. It’s about how useful it is.

As engineers, we often underestimate what seems simple to us. But what’s obvious to us can be magic to someone else.

What Is Value, Anyway?

Since then, I’ve been obsessed with this question: Is this idea valuable? Is it worth my time?

Truth is, I still struggle. Our education hardwires us to believe effort equals value. We solve 100 tough assignments in undergrad and think that’s how the world works.

But in the real world?

Some people add huge value with little effort.
Some burn out over hard work that barely makes a dent.

Value isn’t about sweat. It’s about impact.

And here’s the truth I’ve learned:

“If it’s useful to you, it’s valuable to someone. It doesn’t have to be valuable to everyone.”

A senior told me that, and it flipped my mindset.

Now, when I create something, I ask:

“Not how hard was it… but how much does it help someone?”

That’s the formula I now use to see the world.

And it’s made all the difference.

👋 About Me

Hi, I’m Shuvangkar Das — a power systems researcher with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, currently working as a Research Engineer at EPRI. I work at the intersection of power electronics, inverter-based DERs (IBRs), and AI to help build smarter, greener, and more stable electric grids.

My work spans large-scale EMT simulations, firmware development, reinforcement learning, and hardware prototyping. Beyond engineering, I’m also a YouTuber and content creator — sharing hands-on insights on productivity, research, and knowledge management. My goal is simple: to make complex ideas more accessible and actionable for everyone.

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